Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) in people with infertility: A reliability and validity study

Abstract

Background and objective: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is common in people with infertility problems, but no studies have examined the reliability and validity of measures of GAD among these patients. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Persian Version of the GAD-7 in people with infertility. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, the GAD-7, the HADS (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) and the PSWQ (Penn State Worry Questionnaire) were administered to 539 Iranian men and women with infertility problems in 2017. Internal consistency of the GAD-7 was assessed with Cronbach's alpha, construct validity was evaluated via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and convergent validity was examined by correlating the GAD-7 with HADS and PSWQ scores. Results: The mean total GAD-7 score was 7.37 ± 5.40, and 178 patients (33.0%) had scores of 10 or higher, suggesting moderate or high GAD. The results of CFA confirmed the unidimensional factor structure of the GAD-7 (χ2/df = 3.48; CFI = 0.99; GFI = 0.97; RMSEA = 0.068 and SRMR = 0.031). The internal consistency of the scale was good, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.876. All corrected item-total correlations and inter-item correlations were in acceptable range. The GAD-7 showed a moderate to strong correlation with the anxiety (r = 0.782) and depression (r = 0.524) subscales of the HADS, and with the PSWQ (r = 0.605), confirming convergent validity. Conclusion: The GAD-7 demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity; these results support its use to measure GAD in people with infertility problems.